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StarCraft 2 – Looking Back on the First Year of WCS

With the advent of Heart of the Swarm (the zerg-based sequel to Wings of Liberty that kicked off StarCraft 2), Blizzard instituted a more formal structure to the popular RTS (real-time strategy) game by imposing the World Championship Series (WCS) structure onto the competitive scene (an overview of the basics can be found here). I liked the idea and thought I’d explore its first year (which began in March), particularly in view of who performed best and how balanced the results were.

Briefly, my background as a fan of the game: I got into the competitive StarCraft 2 scene in the summer of 2012 (following the route of becoming a fan of Day[9] via Tabletop and hence into the scene itself–I had played the campaign (including the first StarCraft) beforehand, but had no idea there was scene attached to it). There are a number of sites that cover SC2 (Liquipedia is probably the best), but I haven’t seen an examination of the year quite like how I’ve approached it here.

When I started watching competitive play it was during the heyday of imbalanced Brood Lord/Infestor play, so with the onset of HOTS I was interested to see if the game was more balanced and what players would emerge as the best under the new system. To that end I paid careful attention to how the races performed in the major tournaments and here’s the list of winners (chronologically; I’ve excluded the Redbull tourney below; there are WCS numbers here, btb, but I don’t like taking the raw data at face value). Key: Z=zerg, P=Protoss, T=Terran:

The last few tournaments happened after the end of the official WCS season, but I think it’s worth including them. I realise the Korean season finals happened before the world season finals of the previous season, but I think it’s less confusing to lay it out as above. Back to the main point, too much emphasis can be placed on the race of the champion, but nevertheless here’s the overall breakdown: T – 14, P – 8, Z – 8.

So was it the year of the Terran? There’s no question Korean Terrans performed extremely well, even after the Hellbat nerf (in July). It’s also worth noting that other than in Korea and in the WCS Finals/Blizzcon, none of these tournaments are truly “best-on-best” in terms of the caliber of players participating.

The other thing that remains a constant is that foreigners do not reach the podium (for those unfamiliar with the use of the term in this context, “foreigner” denotes anyone not from Korea). One can argue that a couple of players (Scarlett and Naniwa) can compete with any top Korean player, but it’s needless to say there’s a large gap in overall talent after those two. No foreigner has won their “home” WCS region–only one (Stephano) has made it to the finals. Accepting that looking at the winners alone isn’t the most useful exercise, let’s look at the runner-ups in all the tournaments above:

This presents a very different picture (16 Z 11 P 3 T), with almost a complete absence of Terrans and an edge to Zerg. Combining numbers with the winners (24 Z 19 P 17 T) presents an almost balanced picture, which is to say the races reach finals fairly evenly. This suggests the ability of the players is more at the root of who wins than the race they play. Does this stand up when we examine the other top-four finishers? (The way Dreamhack operates meant there was no real 4th place finisher in the second Winter tournament): Terran – 21, Zerg – 19, Protoss – 19.

The combined results are almost completely balanced (43 Z 38 P 38 T). This isn’t to say the game is perfect, but whatever its imperfections clearly the best players find a way to win–I can’t think of a weaker player who was able to make a significant run at a major tournament simply because of a broken build (unlike the end of Wings of Liberty).

An entirely different question is looking at who excelled in the new format. This year’s structure of the WCS hasn’t created space for foreigners to challenge the dominance of Koreans, but I think that’s less important than creating space for players to develop (that doesn’t seem to have occurred, thus the changes for the upcoming season). The lack of region lock didn’t help (along with, perhaps, the game’s popularity not being what it was a few years ago). Putting aside foreigner issues, I’m interested in which players were the best of the best. The WCS point system is meant to encapsulate this (you can see it here), but I think the imbalance between WCS regions and mixed bag of talent at non-WCS tournaments makes it questionable. So what can we do to figure it out? My approach is to look at Code S players (Koreans premier players) who were consistently in the top-16, along with the results of top performances in the WCS Finals, Blizzcon, and Hot6ix (note: there was a change after the first WCS Korea season regarding whether there was a 5th/6th place finisher or simply a qualifier). In terms of making sense of the raw numbers and differentiating the results I’ve used a very simple point system to illustrate who performed the best (R16=1, 7-8 or 5-8=2, 5-6 or 6th=3, 5th=4, 3-4=8, 2=12, 1=16; the idea here is that each round a player should earn twice as many points as the previous round; I’ve included their WCS ranking in brackets next to their name):

The WCS breakout player has to be Dear, who is the only Code A player prior to HOTS who made a major impact. Throughout the year Soulkey stood tall–his consistency second to none. At the bottom end, it’s clear that neither jjakji, SuperNova, RorO, KangHo (now retired), or Flash belong amongst the best of the Koreans in Korea this year, while only Jaedong, MVP, and Taeja have held their own when facing top players. That leaves fifteen players, some of whom played in a number of tournaments while others have played none. Here’s how they performed:

Only five of these players (Life, HyuN, HerO, MC, and StarDust) have strong track records during the year (duckdeok was a consideration for this list as well–he won Europe season two and beat Innovation at Blizzcon–as was San, who finished second in a pair of tournaments). All of these players are Korean–other than the aforementioned Scarlett and Naniwa, foreigners have not made a dent in the records of the best Koreans. Speaking of foreigners, what are the most notable performances in tournaments?

IEM VII – both Ret and MaNa make it to the R8, but only Ret has a semi-notable win as he takes out MC in the group stage; neither player has a significant result the rest of the year
MLG Winter – no notable results
Europe WCS – Stephano reaches the finals, but with MVP the only notable Korean involved (who defeats him) it’s not that significant
Dreamhack Stockholm – Naniwa beats out MC in his group and defeats Jaedong in the semi’s to go on and lose to Leenock in the finals; SortOf makes the R8, but doesn’t face any heavyweight competition to get there
America WCS – Snute and Moonglade reach R8 without defeating anyone notable
WSC Finals – no notable results
Dreamhack Summer – SjoW beats Life in the R8 before falling to eventual winner StarDust; this is essentially a fluke as SjoW‘s subsequent results are middling
HomeStory Cup VII – Snute defeats HyuN in the quarters and takes Taeja to seven games before losing in the finals; it’s a great accomplishment, but Snute doesn’t follow it up with similar results
Europe WCS – Grubby reaches the semi’s (losing to eventual champion duckdeok) and earns a win over MVP in the group stage
MLG Spring – Naniwa works his way through the losers bracket to the semi’s where he loses to Polt, defeating Jaedong and Dear along the way
America WCS – Scarlett reaches the semi’s (losing to Jaedong), but without beating anyone notable
Dreamhack Valencia – Goswser makes it to the semi’s (losing to HyuN) without beating anyone notable; elfi and LucifroN get to R8 (also without significant wins)
IEM Shanghai – no notable results
ASUS ROG Summer – Happy and Goswser make the R8 without a notable win
Finals WCS – Naniwa and Scarlett reach the R8, with the former beating Innovation and the latter Maru
Europe WCS – VortiX makes the semi’s (losing to MMA) with a semi-notable win (over StarDust)
Dreamhack Bucharest – elfi makes the R8 with a semi-notable win (over StarDust)
America WCS – MacSed reaches R8 without a notable win
IEM New York – Naniwa is again the story as he beats HyuN and makes the final (where he loses to Life)
Finals WCS – no notable results
Blizzcon -no notable results (only Naniwa participates)
HomeStory Cup VIII – BabyKnight and Happy reach R8, with the former having the only semi-notable win (over HerO)
Red Bull – Scarlett beat Bomber and MC to finish 3rd in this very small tournament
Dreamhack Winter – Naniwa goes furthest, beating HyuN in the group stage before falling to JYP
IEM Singapore – Scarlett makes the R8 (losing to Hydra), beating Bomber twice to get there
WCG – Dayshi makes the R8 (losing to Sora) without beating anyone notable
ASUS ROG NorthCon – Scarlett makes it to the finals (losing to Jaedong), defeating StarDust and Life in the process; elfi makes the R8 without a notable win

As repeated above, only Naniwa and Scarlett have multiple wins over top players. Stephano and Snute are the only other foreigners to make a final, but Stephano did so without facing any of the top Koreans to get there. Is there anything to be drawn from the races of the best foreigners?
Zerg (8): Scarlett (Bomberx3, Maru, MC, StarDust, Life), Snute (HyuN), VortiX (StarDust), Ret (MC), Stephano (n/a), Goswser (n/a), Moonglade (n/a), SortOf (n/a)
Protoss (6): Naniwa (Jaedongx2, HyuNx2, MC, Dear, Innovation), Grubby (MVP), elfi (StarDust), BabyKnight (HerO), MaNa (n/a), MacSed (n/a)
Terran (4): SjoW (Life), Happy (n/a), Dayshi (n/a), LucifroN (n/a)

It’s worth noting that I haven’t included wins in earlier stages of tournaments (Grubby beat Polt in the group stage of Stockholm, for example), but there’s very little added in that respect. The weakness of foreign terrans seems straightforward, but the talent available between zerg and protoss is equal. None of these players are new, so there are no breakout performances to be noted (in fact, if anything many of the older players seem to have done better in HOTS). It’s worth emphasizing that only two players have multiple wins over even second-tier Korean pros.

An additional question is how players placed in the initial premier league (those who enjoyed strong seasons in 2012) performed in the new system (I’ve only noted R16 or better in foreign tournaments):

There are no broad generalisations to be made from these results. I’d argue DRG, KeeN, True, and maybe Leenock stayed at about the same level throughout, while the other players tailed off. The 15 players consist of 6 zergs (3 of whom did not decline), 3 protoss (all of whom slumped), and 6 terrans (with one not declining), none of which makes any statement about the performance of the various races.

Again it’s hard to draw conclusions from the results. There are only two Koreans in this list (a far cry from WCS America), which is of note. ForGG, TitaN, HasuObs, Thorzain, sLivko, Shuttle, Kas, and arguably TLO and Nerchio were relatively consistent. The group consists 7 terrans (4 of whom were consistent), 5 zergs (3 of whom were consistent), and 7 protoss (only 2 of whom were consistent), which if it says anything it confirms that European zergs remain among the strongest in foreign play (even after the Infestor nerf, although it’s worth noting that the days of Nerchio et al winning tournaments is clearly over).

The predominance of second-tier Koreans is notable and would only become more of a factor as the year went on and because of that it’s difficult to judge the results–Koreans pounding on foreigners is hardly new or necessarily indicative of anything. Because of that I’ll just point to the foreigners who handled the influx by staying relevant: HuK, Suppy, Minigun, and ViBE–two zergs and two protoss, as terran weakness in NA continues.

One other element worth looking at is balance patches during the WCS and what impact they’ve had:
-(May) Spore crawler damage was increased vs biological to cut down in the tedious muta vs muta ZvZ matches; the change helped, as that is not always the default of the mirror match anymore
-(July) Hellbat’s were nerfed (wrecking Innovation’s results and radically changing terran strategies); Banshee cloaking costs were reduced and have resulted in their use in virtually every TvT; Warp Prism speed was increased (the impact of this is very subtle, but given that virtually no one complains about it I’d say it was limited)
-(August) Overseer speed upgrade makes them even faster, a change that was supposed to help with widowmines, but as we’ll see Blizzard did not think it helped enough
-(November) Windowmine nerf (a further attempt to help ZvT and terran’s have struggled to deal with it), Seige Tank firing increased (no notable impact yet), vehicle and ship upgrades merged (in an attempt to help mech–impact yet to be determined), Oracle speed buff (causing many cries of imba, but it’s too early to tell), and Tunneling Claw speed buff (no notable impact yet)

Personally, I’d like to see less mutalisk play–it feels like every matchup is impacted by the unit, which seems a little ridiculous. There are other things I could get into, but that’s the one thing as a viewer I’d just like less of. That being said, I really enjoyed the first year of WCS. There was more variety of play, a better schedule (almost no tournament conflicts), and a ton of content. I’m hopeful the upcoming season will build on that foundation and be even better.